Epic of the Body

THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS OF JEAN MACAQUE by Sfuarf Cloete. 236 pages, Trident. $4.95.

This droll and sparkling book by Stuart Cloete (rhymes with snooty) adds considerable refinements to the lore of love, all the more surprising since Cloete, who has spent most of his life in South Africa, is noted for mammoth epics of wilderness treks and colonial wars. Somehow, while exploring the heart of darkness, he became interested in illuminating as well the hidden heart of womankind.

Written with Gallic asperity, the novel is composed of a series of bittersweet, Boccaccio-like fables celebrating unambiguously the joys of heterosexual love. They are told by an engaging, disreputable journalist named Jean Macaque, who produces racy copy on order for a Parisian scandal sheet, Coq au Vin, and is a connoisseur of fine women.

Macaque samples some extraordinary vintages: nubile Numeril ("Fileted like a sole, boneless, squirming as a serpent"); Christina, the mountainous Scandinavian masseuse ("Like all scenery, she had to be viewed from a distance. Close by, the charm of the wood was lost in the trees of her passion"). I He generously introduces his conquests to wealthy acquaintances, causing some to snort that he is no better than a pimp, "a vulgarism which I repudiate. I regard myself as a creator, a man of sensitivity who feels that every jewel deserves its casket."

But there is nothing blunt, pornographic or unnecessarily explicit about the love affairs Macaque describes. He sounds a full symphony of sensuality with overtones, grace notes and rests that are as important as the main theme. Bodily love, in the Macaque-Cloete view, is not pleasure alone but the staunchest bulwark against death and despair, a link to nature in a civilization perilously cut loose from its antecedents. "With enough beds," says Macaque, "there might be no battlefields."

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